


all coming back to me now

by greenbucket



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: College, F/F, Hockey, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 18:59:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14002506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenbucket/pseuds/greenbucket
Summary: People drift apart, she’d figured, and let the sadness wear itself down over time.





	all coming back to me now

**Author's Note:**

> Finished up from its disorganised state for the Alice/Georgia square for the OMGCP Rarepairs bingo :) 
> 
> The title is, of course, from Celine Dion's _It's All Coming Back to Me Now_ and is far more dramatic than this fic warrants, but I won't apologise for it.

**Samwell, Summer 2015**

Samwell looks like the kind of college that was made for a college brochure, all lakes and redbrick buildings and students lounging intellectually on the grassy expanses. Georgia can admit to herself that she’s a little bit in love with it from the get go, and it’s hard not to fall in love with it entirely with the way Jack looks at it and with Alicia sharing all the quirks of its student life before the ceremony begins.

Georgia feels far from dissatisfied with her life the way it is now, and she knows she’s putting on her rose-tinted glasses, but damn if she doesn’t miss being a student just a tiny bit.

The ceremony itself is pretty much like countless other ceremonies George has been to over the years. It’s a refreshing change to be in the audience instead of up on the stage presenting or announcing things as she’s become used to, although the long wait for Jack to come up at the end – downside of the name Zimmermann – does make her think of the long-ass waiting process of the draft, watching kids she hopes the best for but doesn’t actually care about pass in front of her.

It’s hot sitting out under the sun, and for all Samwell is rolling in it they’ve clearly cheaped out on the foldable chairs; Georgia’s ass aches ten minutes in. She finds herself spacing out a little, gaze wandering. There’s a woman on the stage where the departmental staff are standing, watching their little graduates fly the nest, who seems kind of familiar and George tries to place her. Someone Jack’s mentioned to her? A friend of Bob-and-Alicia’s that Georgia has been introduced to sometime in the past couple of decades? Just a rando whose face is sticking in her mind?

Georgia knows a lot of people, from a lot of different places. You don’t live in seven different cities in two different countries working as part of an international corporation and playing professional hockey, travel the world scouting, and be an assistant GM of an NHL team without meeting more people than one human memory could ever retain.

For events she usually preps with some flashcards beforehand because networking needs easing with some cosy-but-not-too-cosy friendliness, a little knowing when to as after the wife and kids and when there’s been a recent messy divorce and custody battle; she hadn’t expected to need that kind of prep for Jack Zimmermann’s college graduation, is all.

It’s not until Jack has already walked across the stage – and fuck if Georgia isn’t proud of him, she’s watched the kid grow up from a distance, attended his seventh birthday party when she’d been playing in Montreal, felt heart break a little when she saw on the news that he was checking into rehab – that Georgia finally connects a name to the woman. It blows her mind a little, but now it’s come to her there’s no way it isn’t Alice Atley up there.

Georgia has half a mind to go and talk to her once everyone starts getting up and moving out, but she needs to give Jack her congratulations first, and then she finds herself getting a little emotional over it which is silly, and then Bob and Alicia are getting a little emotional, too, and Georgia has to chirp them just a bit. By the time that’s all done, and Jack has rushed off somewhere while Alicia has been swept away for alum duties and Bob for yes-I’m-really-Bad-Bob-Zimmermann-retired-face-of-hockey-sure-I’ll-take-a-selfie duties, George has lost track of her.

She stands back by the lake, half watching a few determined students jump into it with abandon and shrieking, half scanning the crowd for Alice. It would just be nice to say hi, that’s all; it’s been years and years since Georgia last saw her.

They’d written to each other, before email was a widespread thing, while Alice was away and then after graduation, and they’d met up where they could, and then somewhere along the line they’d lost touch. Forgotten to reply as much, or not passed along new contact details, Georgia isn’t even sure anymore. People drift apart, she’d figured, and let the sadness wear itself down over time.

She didn’t even know Alice had finally managed to become an actual professor, just like she’d said she would way back when. It brings the sadness to the fore again, mixing with the excitement-anxiety of perhaps being able to catch up, to see evidence of all the things she's missed.

There’s no reason for George to check her reflection as subtly as possible in her phone screen (because she knows she looks good and it’s not like it matters anyway, it would just be old friends meeting again for a minute, two passing ships) but she does anyway. It’s been a warm and busy day; her hair might be a mess.

Not that it matters, because Alice has probably already left to get on with whatever it is college professors get up to. Writing ground-breaking papers, and marking things, and maintaining the aesthetic of their offices. Georgia tells herself to stop being stupid and turns her attention fully to the students in the ‘Pond’, who are now scooping up water in their mortar boards and throwing it at classmates still on land.

Georgia is torn between joining in – though she can imagine what the Falcs PR team would have to say about that – and moving away to avoid her (very expensive, let her indulge, okay) blazer getting splashed.

And then from behind her, a voice that feels unreal to hear here, all these years down the line: “Hey, excuse me if I’m making a fool out of myself, but Georgia Martin? Is that you?”

 

**Tampere, Spring 1992**

Georgia is thankful that it’s April, because it means she can stay sitting where she is on the steps down to the path by the water and cry her eyes out without her tears literally freezing on her face or her butt getting frostbite.

It still can’t be over 50 outside, because it’s still Finland and it’s still only April, but George was still riding the wave of post-loss numbness back when she’d escaped her hotel room and so she’d managed to wrap up warm enough on automatic. She’d said something to management, so they didn’t freak out thinking they’d lost someone abroad, and then she’d blindly walked around the streets of Tampere like she knew where the fuck she was going for who knew how long until she’d found herself here.

The water had looked beautiful, calm and serene under the clear sky with the trees and buildings all around, and she’d sat down on the steps hard. George is sure it’s still a great little European postcard snap of a picture, if only she could stop crying long enough to appreciate it.

She should be with her teammates, should be drowning her sorrows with them back at the hotel and reminding Wires that it’s never the goalie’s fault and generally being the friendly face in the room she always grows to be on every team. And even if she can’t muster that up right now, she should be letting the girls that’ve been here a few times before wrap an arm around her shoulder like it can change anything.

And she will do all that. Just later, after she’s had some time to herself to get the worst of it out the way.

Georgia can’t fucking believe they got shut out in the fucking gold medal game. Shut out _8-0_. The wave of guilt-disappointment-disbelief-fury pushes out fresh tears just thinking about it.

They’d gotten cocky, was the thing. It was hard not to after they obliterated Switzerland 17-0, even with Switzerland not being a big contender to start with, and then they’d just kept winning. Norway, Finland, and Sweden had all failed to stop their streak. Not that Canada hadn’t been doing just as well, and not that everyone hadn’t been _aware_ of that. It’s just that it’s easy to feel confident and excited, a team of college students as they are. Georgia’s only 21; it’s practically her job to be a little cocky.

But a _shutout_. George can still see in her mind all her shots that hadn’t quite made it, all the passes that should’ve been second nature but she’d been too sloppy to make connect, like some kind of horrifying highlight reel of failures.

Not that winning silver is real failure, not by any measure and especially not against Canada, but they’d been so fucking _close._ Georgia can’t believe they managed to fuck it up somehow, that _she_ managed to fuck it up somehow. Ten points in five games and for what? A silver medal, a team’s worth of disappointment weighing on her chest, every muscle in her body aching. And now a headache from crying, too. It’s stupid – Georgia isn’t even much of a crier, usually.

George had been thanking the anonymity of Tampere as she wandered around before; with no one to recognise her, and only the team that might follow up after her, she had the freedom to feel as terrible as she liked in peace. But now the sound of someone speaking in Finnish behind her is just a reminder that she’s in Finland all alone and she’s cold and lost and _they_ lost and it’s horrible.

George wraps her arms tighter around her knees and fuck anonymity; she wishes more than anything right now that she could get a hug from her mom, or see even one familiar face ––that isn’t team, not right now –– and have them tell her it’s going to be okay. 

“Hey, are you all right?”

It doesn’t even register that the words are directed at her for a moment but there’s no one else around and the person speaking is right behind her so she turns, not so subtly wiping her eyes so she can actually see, and says “Sorry?”

There’s a person wrapped up arctic-style against the cold standing at the top of the steps, hesitantly half-stepped toward her. “Um, sorry if you don’t speak English either I was just asking if everything was okay, it sounded like you were– wait. Georgia?”

“That’s me,” George says automatically, even though she can’t quite attach a name to the arctic-wrapped girl before her. She knows a lot of people, okay, Georgia’s a sociable person when she’s not sitting alone and crying in public. And then the voice clicks and, “Oh, wow. Alice, right?”

With that arctic-wrapped Alice’s hesitance seemingly fades and she moves to sit beside George on the steps despite the cold and how offputtingly snotty George must be looking. She’s smiling from what George can see around her quadruple-wrapped scarf, and still looks a little concerned but her tone is light-heartedly flirtatious (which has Georgia’s heart skipping a beat, she can admit it) when she says, “Fancy seeing you here, huh?”

 

**Providence, Winter 1991**

Civ Scream is, in all complete honesty, a life saver.

Georgia is pretty sure her head would’ve popped if she hadn’t let out some of her pent-up stress by screaming at the very top of her lungs with her fellow stressed out sophomores (and freshmen) under the night sky before they all accept their fates and sit the civ exam. And now that she’s all screamed out, watching the dude in the middle of the circle set shit on fire is pretty cathartic, too. The group of three that run through naked even though it has to be dangerously cold maybe less so, but still.

George had come along with a mix of her freshman and sophomore hockey girls and some people from her classes, all in one big cluster from Raymond Hall where they’d all been studying their brains to mush, but somehow she’s got separated. George is a fairly confident kind of person and she’s hung around jocks her whole life but she isn’t sure about being on her own in a crowd of people left to act as wild as they like. It’s dark and busy and, as hard as she looks, with the crowd getting bigger by the minute Georgia can’t find a familiar face.

She feels a little unsteady on her feet with stress and exhaustion and draining adrenaline from screaming. As much as it had been cathartic to shriek all of that out, it’s getting a little overwhelming now things are getting more excited, and she’s acutely aware of the fact that the exam is still tomorrow, and she is running on far less than optimum sleep already.

Her girls might worry if she vanishes, and she doesn’t have any way to contact them, but Georgia is already flagging and ready to get into bed. She figures if they’re really worried they’ll check her dorm and find her safe and asleep. Hopefully. God help anyone that keep her awake.

Georgia’s making her way through the crowd, with a little help from some strategic elbowing and some stepping on toes, when she sees a girl’s wallet drop out her pocket. The girl is doing the same wiggly dance to get out of the crowd as George and she doesn’t notice the loss of her wallet. Georgia picks it up, mind shrinking away from imaging the stress of losing your wallet the day before the civ exam, and changes course to follow after the girl.

“Hey, excuse me!” she yells, as probably useless as she knows it must be in the noise of the crowd, “Hey! You dropped your wallet!”

The girl doesn’t turn, and then Georgia gets blocked by a group that are too distracted to let her through, and the girl has vanished. George makes her way to the edge of the crowd and the nearest street lamp and, feeling a little like she’s snooping, searches through the wallet. There’s a couple of notes and some cards, including a student ID that identifies the girl as Alice Atley, freshman undergraduate, which is handy if George goes to hand it in to the lost property tomorrow but doesn’t do much right then.

And then she sees a dorm key tucked into the general pocket of the wallet, the pocket which Georgia herself usually puts her library receipts in and then forgets about until she gets an annoyed letter requesting she return her books immediately lest she incur a fine.

 _Fuck me_ , thinks Georgia. _Imagine losing your wallet and your keys in one night, all before the civ exam. What kind of luck._

But then she reconsiders: Alice Atley, whoever she is, is lucky that Georgia is the one to have found her wallet and not some actual asshole, who would’ve probably stolen the money and used the dorm key for pranks. And she’s extra lucky that Georgia knows plenty of people from plenty of dorms, which means she recognises it as the Fennell Hall-style key.

It’s just unlucky that Fennell Hall is basically all the way across campus. Georgia looks down at the wallet in her hands. She doesn’t want to walk all the way across campus; it’s cold, and she’s tired, and it’s the exam tomorrow.

But she can’t leave a freshman out shivering in the cold all night, waiting for someone to maybe let her in and worrying about having to replace her whole wallet, especially when this Alice has to sit the exam tomorrow too. Georgia tells herself one day she’s going to stop being so nice – which he doesn’t believe even as she thinks it, Georgia doesn’t know any other way to be than caring about people, even when it pisses her off – then wraps her scarf tighter around her neck and walks.

When she _finally_ makes it to Fennell Hall (and fuck, why do people choose this dorm again?), she spots the girl outside right away. She’s leaning against the wall just by the door, eyes shut like she’s trying to catch some sleep standing up.

“I’ve got your wallet,” Georgia calls out before she even reaches her, because she really would like to get to bed soon.

Alice’s eyes snap open and when she sees the wallet in Georgia’s hand she looks so grateful that Georgia can’t do anything but hand it over, none of the kind-but-firm reminders about being careful in a crowd that she’d been planning saying on coming out.

“Oh, wow, thank you so much,” says Alice, searching through the wallet and giving a tiny fist pump when she finds her key still in there, “You are an absolute saint, I cannot thank you enough.”

Georgia shrugs, feeling flustered. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m serious, I thought I was going to be out here all night and freeze to death.” Alice tucks the wallet back in her coat pocket, key held firmly in her hand, and smiles up at Georgia, who feels herself get even more flustered. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

“Georgia,” says Georgia, and then because she’s accidentally been a pretty girl’s knight in shining armour and it apparently makes her stupid, “Martin. Georgia Martin, that’s my name. Or George, sometimes.”

Alice puts out a hand which Georgia shakes on autopilot. “Nice to meet you, and thank you again, really, for saving my life.”

“Really, it wasn’t any problem,” says George, even though she’s walked in the complete wrong direction to get here.

“Still. Thank you. And now we should both be getting to bed, don’t you think?”

Bed. Pretty girl. It’s fine. “Yep, gotta be ready for the exam, right? Good luck, and all of that.”

Alice’s smile is a lot, if Georgia is being honest. “You, too. And if I see you around I’ll– I don’t know. I can’t buy you a drink as thanks, but I’ll think of something. Save you a place in the library, maybe.”

Georgia manages to express something along the lines of that being great, and some kind of goodnight, and makes her escape. It’s not something she didn’t already know, that pretty girls make her act ridiculous, but it’s a humbling reminder. Maybe she should fit in just a little more studying before she goes to bed, just to make sure her brain actually still functions.

 

 

**Providence, Spring 1991**

When she next sees Alice, it’s at a house party during Spring Break. The people are spilling out onto the front lawn of the house and Georgia actually isn’t sure who invited her, or if it was her roomie Claire that had been invited and she’d just come along. She’s pretty drunk, is the thing.

Alice’s mouth is hot against hers, her hands moving over Georgia’s body like she wants to touch everything at once, doesn’t know where to stop. Georgia’s skin feels hot and buzzing, oversensitive in a way she doesn’t realise until Alice’s hands are on her ass and it makes her gasp, even though they’re just in someone’s dark bedroom, still fully clothed.

Alice hesitates, unsure if she’s overstepped, maybe, and George cups her face to pull her in and kiss her with as much enthusiasm pushed into it as she can. Alice’s hands on her ass are more than okay.

They kiss and kiss and kiss and Georgia is caught between letting it go on happily for hours and hours and moving it along a bit, maybe getting them over to the bed. It’s probably not very nice to make out (or more) on someone’s bed without asking, but that’s what happens when you throw a house party and leave your bedroom door unlocked, and Georgia is too drunk and too into Alice to care right then anyway.

And then someone knocks on the door.

“Hello, anyone in there?”

Alice and Georgia go still. Neither of them answers, and whoever is on the other side tries the door, but luckily Alice had the sense to lock it when they’d snuck in.

“Hey, no worries. Have fun and use protection!” the person on the other side yells through, the sound of them laughing with whoever they were probably hoping to get off with in the room fading as they move on.

Georgia breathes deeply through her nose for a moment. Her brain feels fuzzed and confused with alcohol and arousal, a couple of steps behind what’s happening around her. She opens her mouth to say something along the lines of ‘that was close’, something to ease the tension and get them back to kissing, but Alice is pulling away.

“I should go,” she says, not looking at George.

Georgia can respect that, but she doesn’t like the way Alice’s arms are wrapped around herself, the way she’s blinking too fast and nervous. “Are you all right?” she asks.

“Yes. I mean– I’m– yes. I’m fine. Fine. But I should go,” Alice unfolds her arms with what looks like some effort, shrugs her shoulders like it’ll stop her looking so cornered. She’s determinedly bright sounding and manages to move her gaze to just left of Georgia’s face when she says, “I’ll see you around, Georgia.”

Then she’s unlocking and slipping out the door before Georgia can respond. Georgia stays in the room alone for a little bit, appreciating the dark and quiet. She feels bad, and wrongfooted, and worried, to have it end so abruptly and anxiously, but she isn’t sure where things went wrong.

They weren’t caught, whoever that was knocking didn’t know it was the two of them in there. But maybe the idea enough was enough to get Alice spooked. Georgia can understand that; plenty of the girls on the team are lesbians like her, or bi, and she’s still not ready to tell people. She doesn’t know when she will be. Alice might still be figuring things out.

It still feels bad, though. She stays in the room for a little longer until another couple come to the door looking for some privacy, and outside the party is suddenly too loud and too much. She decides she’s hand enough of this night and heads home.

 

**Tampere, Spring 1992**

“… And so now we’re only getting silver,” Georgia concludes, letting out a long breath now she’s done.

Alice looks like a minimum half of the detailed play by play of the game George has gone into went completely over her head, but her expression is sympathetic and the comfort in her voice brings George’s shoulders down from around her ears all the same as she says, “But y’all did your best, didn’t you?”

Georgia shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.” She isn’t that sure she did do her _best_ , all those missed passes going through her mind for the billionth time, but she’s coming to the point where she can see she did the best she could under the circumstances of a shaky game.

“And you can try again next time?”

George shrugs again, “If they pick me.”

“Of course they’re going to pick you,” Alice says, rolling her eyes. “Georgia, I don’t know the first thing about hockey and I know you’re amazing.”

George tries not to preen, because her mom always taught her to be proud but not boastful, and because it’s a little ridiculous that just that from Alice can (temporarily) bring Georgia out of her bad mood. She doesn’t manage to reign in the pleased-as-punch smile she sends Alice’s way, though, judging from the way Alice herself looks pleased with herself and kind of soft.

“Thanks, Alice. You’re too sweet.”

“I said I’d pay you back for finding my wallet, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Georgia agrees, and she doesn’t mention that that wasn’t the last time they saw each other. “Consider us equal.”

“And it only took listening to you describe an entire hockey game sitting out in the cold,” says Alice, giving Georgia a little nudge to show she’s teasing. “Not bad. Just what they told me Finland would be like.”

“Ugh, I’m the worst. I’ve just been ranting on and on about my shitty game and losing all my manners,” Georgia realises, chest clenching with embarrassment. She forces herself out of her rapidly returning disappointment to ask, “How’ve you been? It’s been ages! You’re here doing study abroad, right?”

Alice confirms it and gets to her feet. “Come on, let’s walk and talk, my feet are going numb and you must be exhausted.”

“I’ve also got zero idea where we are right now,” George admits. “Any idea how to get back to my hotel?” She lists off the address and Alice gives an exaggerated sigh.

“That’s going to be a hell of a walk,” she warns.

Georgia’s eyes catch on a new addition to Alice’s piercings as she readjusts her scarf –– a simple gold hoop in the shell of her ear –– and tries to convince herself her she isn’t staring and it isn’t attractive. She hasn’t seen Alice at all since she practically ran out of that room at the party; she isn’t sure where they stand, or where Alice stands with that part of herself yet.

“At least it’ll be in good company,” Georgia says. She waits to see how that tentative flirtation lands and when Alice just looks a charming combination of embarrassed and pleased, readjusting her scarf again unnecessarily, something settles in Georgia’s chest with relief.

“Very smooth,” says Alice as they start to walk, “but not as smooth as the very insistent man I was unlucky enough to be seated next to on the flight over here. Lord above, let me tell you, I was just trying to read up on local cuisine and prep myself for a _year in another country_ and there he was yabbering away…”

 

**Samwell, Summer 2015**

Georgia turns, and there she is. Alice Atley, in the flesh, before her very eyes. She’s aged, just like Georgia knows she has herself, but she’s still just as pretty, and Georgia still doesn’t know what to do when presented with a pretty girl. She tries to think of something cool to say and fails.

“That’s me,” she says, and its an echo of their conversation in Tampere all those years ago.

The way Alice smiles, a little bittersweet and a little like they’re sharing an inside joke, like they’ve both stumbled across something that used to bring them joy that they’d forgotten all about, tells Georgia she’s thinking the same thing.

Alice’s smile widens into something just happy, and George can’t help but smile back, a simple pleasure at getting a fresh chance at something you were sure had passed you by. Georgia doesn’t know what’s going to happen past this second, there’s no sudden understanding of what path to take bestowed from above, but it’s just really good to see Alice again.

Alice says, voice light-heartedly flirtatious, “Fancy seeing you here, huh?”

**Author's Note:**

> \- All scores are the [actual ones from the 1992 IIHF Women's World Championship](http://teamusa.usahockey.com/page/show/2430229-1992-iihf-women-s-world-championship), with the individual points for Georgia taken from those scored by Cammi Granato aka 8 goals and 2 assists
> 
> \- The goalie is nickname’d combo of the actual goalies for the 1992 roster’s names (Erin Whitten + Kelly Dryer + Jenny Hanley = Whierley aka Wires, bc in this universe she studies engineering)
> 
> \- Re: Providence College video evidence and [this article](https://www.theodysseyonline.com/11-unwritten-rules-providence-college) says that civ scream is real and the campus map makes Aquinas Quad look way far from Fenell Hall.
> 
> \- in this version of the Check, Please! universe, Georgia played as part of the Bonaventure Wingstar/Montreal Wingstar/Montreal Axion of the old NWHL (now the CWHL and Les Canadiennes de Montreal) while working in Montreal (in some vague businessy PR corporatey job), and she met Bob and Alicia there and they took her under their wing but also treated her as an equal and she became like a cool, occasionally-visiting aunt for Jack.


End file.
